Couple has passion for aiding kids in crisis

Linda and Charles Van Kessler sit in the living room at their home on Thursday in Encinitas, California. This is where children in their Passion 4 Kids program come to play. - Eduardo Contreras

— It may be late March, but an artificial Christmas tree is still standing in the living room of Charles and Linda Van Kessler, and perhaps that's fitting, because the Encinitas couple are like year-round Santas to families with sick children.

Through their nonprofit Passion 4 K.I.D.S. (an acronym for Kids in Desperate Situations), the Van Kesslers have provided housing, car payments, home repairs, funeral expenses, wheelchairs, groceries, service dogs, toys and more to dozens of families around the country who have asked for their help. The 8-year-old organization became the focus of the couple's energies three years ago when they took on the case of 'Baby Izaiah,' a Vista toddler left severely disabled when his stroller was struck by a teenage drunken driver in 2010.

Izaiah's parents, Jacob Wallis and Lucy Verde, consider the Van Kesslers their guardian angels.

'Since Day One, they've done everything for us. We would be lost without them,' said Wallis, 24. 'They work 24/7 and spend a lot of sleepless nights setting things up to make our family as happy as possible. And it's not just us, they've been angels to dozens of other kids. They give and give and don't take no for an answer.'

Passion 4 K.I.D.S. is a shoestring organization the Van Kesslers run from their home. Profits from their liquid vitamin company, Passion 4 Life, funds part of their efforts. The rest comes from fundraising on the group's website, scanning the 'free' and 'for sale' ads on Craigslist, and working with the media like the 'Dr. Phil' show to highlight the stories of families in need.

For Izaiah's family, the organization raised $100,000 - mostly from small donations of just $5 to $10 - to buy the young couple an older home. Then, Linda convinced 64 companies to donate their services to adapt the house for Izaiah's medical needs.

'I do a lot of begging,' said Linda, 59. 'But I have a passion to make these children's lives better. And we've seen how people will come forward to help when they understand how they can.'

Passion 4 K.I.D.S. isn't corporate funded and there is no paid staff. Most of the projects it funds are small, designed to solve a short-term problem for families teetering on the brink.

'We wanted to work with families in immediate crisis,' said Charles, 73. 'These are families that don't have insurance, they don't have much left over to cover bills, or big companies haven't helped them out.'

Born in Amsterdam in 1941, Charles lost his family in the Holocaust and spent eight years in a Dutch orphanage. After he immigrated to the U.S. in 1964, he found success in the Texas insurance business. While doing service work in the mid-1980s for children living in the garbage dumps of Juarez, Mexico, Charles said he felt a divine calling to create a children's foundation. But he didn't have the marketing savvy to promote and grow the organization until he met and married Linda, nearly 20 years later.

A New Jersey native, Linda spent decades in the field of media and public relations, first in the White House administration of President Gerald R. Ford, then as Ford's private appointment secretary in Palm Springs. She also did special projects for 25 years for the Rev. Billy Graham and worked two years at the Rev. Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral in Orange County.